Face Of Fashion

VOGUE editor Alexandra Shulman has joined the debate about prejudices within the fashion industry - one that has come to the fore since John Galliano's arrest in February and James Brown's more recent intoxicated tirade in London - but Shulman says these incidents are not proof of institutionalised racism.

"I don't think that fashion is institutionally racist in the slightest," Shulman told the Daily Mail. "There have always been black players on the scene — at the moment look at the stylist Edward Enninful, make-up artist Pat McGrath and [models] Jourdan Dunn, Liya Kebede and Joan Smalls, who are at the top of the tree."

Shulman notes magazine editors run cover stars according to the faces that help sell their publications.

"In a society where the mass of the consumers are white and where, on the whole, mainstream ideas sell, it's unlikely there will be a huge rise in the number of leading black models," explained Shulman. "If you look at the characters that sell magazines such as Grazia and Heat, it is Jennifer Aniston, Cheryl Cole and Catherine Middleton. I don't want to discuss who I wish to have on the cover, but there are at least two black figures in the pipeline."

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